


Demons and Pilgrims, All in Accord

by zeldadestry



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-31
Updated: 2008-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:31:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All these hours I been at your side," he said, soft and slow, "I was thinking you crowned yourself the most righteous man under the sun. But that ain't it at all. That ain't it at all."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demons and Pilgrims, All in Accord

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written to celebrate romanyg's birthday!!!
> 
> Thanks to Luzula there is now a podfic available for this story! You can visit it here:  
> http://amplificathon.dreamwidth.org/2237678.html

He had a dream, a few nights before they pulled off the raid near Bisbee. He dreamed of a single light in the dark, a door and someone standing at that door, shadowed and indistinct. In the morning he drank his coffee by the fire, his mind fixed on it. Charlie poked at the embers with a stick. "Trouble, Boss?"

"No, Charlie, just thinking. I had a strange dream, a vision of a place I ain't never been."

"Knew a man once, swore he could dream the future. He died, bullet to the back of the head, didn't see that comin," Charlie drawled, punctuating the end of his speech with a long, searching look at Ben, as he so often did. "I too got a strange dream," Charlie began, but Ben held up his hand and shook his head. Charlie was quiet.

"Forget it," Ben said.

"Whatever you say, Boss."

Ben could feel Charlie's eyes on him as he walked away. It chilled him to think of Charlie's dreams.

  


Time passed slowly for Ben in the bridal suite, but not unhappily. If he could have stayed there for eternity, observing Dan, learning him, it might not have been such a bad fate.

Time was rushing for Dan, the increasing anxiety across his face each time he checked his watch proved as much. Time had almost run out for him, and that was the only fact troubling Ben. "When did you stop loving your wife, Dan? Or did you never love her at all?"

"You ask questions like that, Wade, and I start thinking you don't even have a soul."

"Might be better off if I didn't. Can't damn a man who ain't got a soul."

"We all have souls. Some of us just dishonor them," Dan said, humbly, which gave Ben pause. Said smugly, the words would have been directed at Ben. Said so plain, was Dan talking about himself?

"Ready for your maker?"

"Are you?"

"I been ready for years. I was born ready." Dan didn't understand the world as it was, seemed to live in the world as it should be, and that was gonna lead him quick to his grave. If it took harsh honesty on Ben's part to make him see, so much the better. "You can die a hero a thousand times over and it still won't ever be a comfort to Alice." Dan blinked rapidly when Ben said her name. So he would cry over her; she was worth his tears, but not changing his course? "You tell me," Ben demanded. "Right now. What does your wife want? Your living body or your corpse?" He moved in and Dan pushed him back with the butt of the gun pressing against Ben's guts. Ben put his hands up, moved a step further away. "Do you know what it'll be like for her when you're dead? No amount of mourning will make her grief go away. She'll find herself willing to make a bargain with anyone, god or the devil; she'd tender her own life for just one more minute with you. That the fate you want for her?"

"You know it ain't! But I have to have the money."

"I'll pay you, Dan. I already told you that. I'll pay you my own damn share and it's more than you need. But I'll give it all to you if you'll end this."

"It's not just the money. I got to have the water run free on my land."

"You stupid fuck. Every time I get to thinking you're a man, not a fool, you spout bullshit like that. Let me explain something to you. Once you got the money you can bribe the lawmen. That's justice in this corner of the world."

"That ain't justice," Dan sneered.

"You're right. You know why you're right?" Dan didn't answer. "Because justice don't exist on this earth." Ben turned away, returned to his perch at the edge of the bed. "You're more like to hang today than I am, Dan, and do you know why? It's your dream of life. Men are brutes, and life is brutal. You're not a stupid man. Why can't you see it?" Dan ignored him and Ben waited. Soon enough he saw that Dan was consumed in his troubles again, and Ben stood back up. He moved closer to Dan, moved within an arm's reach. "You realize I can kill you from this distance?"

"Not as easy as I can kill you," Dan replied, lifting the gun so that its barrels aimed at Ben's face.

"You know I could have killed you already if that's what I wanted," Ben countered. "I had the chance. Still do. It would have been easy. Look how close you let me get. I'm one step away from you, and you ain't paying enough attention. Think about it. I could bash you in the mouth or the eye with my elbow, I could drive my fists into your throat. All I would have to do is stun you and get the gun away. That's how easy it would be."

"And then?" Dan said, lowering the gun.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"You distract me and you get the gun. Alright. Then what? Would you shoot me?"

"I'm not going to kill you, Dan. But if you don't end this, you are going to die today."

Dan smirked. "And what the hell does that matter to you?"

"It shouldn't," Ben admitted.

"But it does," Dan said, intrigued, shifting forward. "Why?"

"I can't figure you. There's something just don't fit."

"There's no mystery in me," he insisted, and his fingers gripped the gun tighter, like he needed its protection more than ever.

Ben stared at him, noted the blush spreading over his cheeks. "You just lied," he said. "Why? What the hell can a man do so bad he'd be ashamed for me to know it?"

"It ain't like that. It's no sin or crime."

"Look me in the eye and say that." Dan refused. "You're a liar." Ben gave a short laugh, astonished. Dan's jaw was clenched and a muscle in his cheek twitched. Ben reached out a fingertip, touched that spot of Dan's flesh and felt it tremble underneath. "All these hours I been at your side," he said, soft and slow, "I was thinking you crowned yourself the most righteous man under the sun. But that ain't it at all. That ain't it at all." He stroked his thumb across Dan's face, curved his hand around the side of his neck. Dan stared straight ahead, taut like a man in pain. Ben usually had the words he needed to get what he wanted on the very tip of his forked tongue. His mouth opened, but he did not speak, only licked his lips in hunger. He looked over Dan's face, noticed the places that were still red and raw, bruised and tender, from his own boot's blow. "You're hurting, ain't you?" he whispered, and he did not know from where the words came. "Tell me why." Was like they came from a need of Dan's, not his own. "Tell me. I won't hurt you again." Dan's eyes fell shut as Ben closed in.

  


He nursed the idea of seeing Dan again, though he never admitted it to himself in the light of day. He knew their respective paths could only lead them further and further away, and he didn't intend to waste any time on shit that was out of his hands. He knew better, but he couldn't always help the places his mind wandered on nights when he had trouble sleeping.

  


It was a late night in Hermosillo when he saw him, down at the opposite end of the bar, alone, slumped over his drink. "You know that man?" he asked the woman behind the counter. Sofia was like himself, a living legend. Gossip around town held that she'd won her property in a card game. She would only smile and shrug if you asked her about it. She kept order with the threat of a pistol, its outline visible in a pocket of her apron. They said she could shoot the balls off a dog from half a mile away. He'd known her as long as he'd visited the place and had a kindness towards her. The sentiment was mutual. The moment he appeared she immediately evicted the couple staying in her best room upstairs, she always would for him.

"Si, Senor Wade. He rents a cot in the shack out back."

"He does? By the barn? For how long?"

"Few months." She beckoned to him, motherly concern he could not scorn etched on her face. "He drinks too much," she whispered. "He drinks too much and he eats almost nothing." She brought her rosary up to her lips and held it there for a moment, then put it back under her blouse. "He'll drink himself to death, he's not careful."

He walked down the length of the bar, breathing shallow against the tension in his chest. "What the hell you doing here?"

Dan laughed until he shook with it, mescal sloshed from the glass in his hand and onto his shirt. "Ben fucking Wade. How many people you killed since I saw you last?"

"How the hell did you get here?"

"Same as you did, just turned my horse south."

"You know that ain't what I mean. What are you doing here?" But Dan would only shake his head, laugh, and keep drinking. He couldn't get anything out of him until he asked, "Why aren't you at home?"

Dan grabbed the front of Ben's shirt, dragged him down and snarled, "Don't you fucking ask me that question. Go to hell."

Ben took Dan's wrists in his hands. "You better let go of me," he said, dead calm. Dan did, turned away from him with disdain that sent Ben's temper flaring. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he hissed as he leaned in over Dan and spoke in his ear. "You know what it looks like to the men here when I let some asshole start something with me and don't make him pay?"

"I don't give two shits for your reputation," Dan replied. "Shoot me dead right here, right now, if it makes you look more a man. I don't mind."

He spoke like life was a burden and it made Ben want to throw him up against the wall, throw him down to the floor, bite and kick and scratch until he fought back. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you," he said, staring at Dan who was trying to ignore him and get Sofia's attention for another drink. "But this ain't over." The band kept playing, more women came in to dance, the gambling continued, and Ben turned from Dan and gave himself to the revel around him. From time to time he spared a look in Dan's direction, and always the man was alone, his glass in front of him. An hour or so later, when Dan eventually passed out, Ben beckoned to a broad shouldered man, slipped coins into his pocket. "Get him upstairs." He put Dan in his own bed. It was more than big enough for two but if it weren't it wouldn't have mattered.

"He will be sick in the morning," Sofia warned. She had followed him up the stairs. "I will make horchata for him."

"You don't rent to him ever again," he told Sofia. "Only to me. Entiende?" She nodded. He kissed her cheek and she patted his in return.

"Take care of your friend," she said. "He needs to remember he is not the only one who struggles. Matrimonio y mortaja del cielo bajan. You know the saying? The bridal veil, the funeral shroud, they come from the same place, crees? They are both a part of this life."

"Si," Ben replied. "Si. Lo creo." There was too much truth in that. The Wades and Evans of the world, yeah, they all shared the same sky, no matter how much space they put between them.

"It is the same for all of us. He is not the only one." She put out her hands for him and he kissed them and she gave a little curtsey in return. "Buenas Noches."

"Buenas noches."

He prepared for sleep, took his gun from its holster and placed it on the end table. He stood by the bed for a moment, observing his unexpected companion. By the flickers of the flame, Dan looked haggard. Ben turned away, crossed the room and examined his own face in the small glass. There was some gray in his beard, a purple streak under each of his bloodshot eyes. He crossed himself after he washed, uttered not a prayer, but a line of G.M. Hopkins': "All life death does end and each day dies with sleep."

He lay in bed beside Dan, remembered the first time he'd seen him. Dan. Dan with his boys. A family man, a man who loved his family.

And then again at Emmy's bar. Dan had amused him with his insistence on being paid and the obvious fact that he wasn't afraid of Ben. So what was Dan afraid of? Something so bad that he was willing to die to keep away from it. Why?

  


Dan was very sick for several days. Sometimes it was Ben who fed him his broth and helped him drink the agua fresca that Sofia brought up. Mostly it was Sofia who nursed him, but sometimes Dan was sound asleep when she came, and then she left the glass with Ben and it was he who took care.

On the third night of the convalescence Ben was preparing for bed when he heard Dan's hacking cough and crossed the room to see how he got on. He stood beside him and Dan opened his eyes, looked up blearily. He pointed. "Same damn gun."

Ben gave a nod. "Only a fool goes through this world without the means to defend himself."

"Only a fool," Dan repeated and closed his eyes again. "Wish you'd take the fucking cross off it."

"There's some juice here," Ben said. "Can you drink it?" He brought it over and Dan raised himself up on his forearm, took the glass. Ben went over to the basin, stripped down to his underclothes, washed. When he turned around again, Dan's back was to him. He crossed himself, glad Dan couldn't see it, and put out the lantern. He stood still for a moment, let his eyes adjust to the dark, then moved to the bed, slipped into it. He lay on his back, and soon he felt Dan shift onto his own. He stared up at the ceiling. "You realize this is another damn bridal suite?"

"Is it?"

"It's the best room in the place." He felt strange in his own body, aware of his own whole leg beside Dan's, aware that neither of them ought to be here or together.

"The best room for the worst men," Dan sighed, and turned over on his side again. "Good night."

"Night."

He woke around dawn to find Dan sitting up in the dim light, looking out the window. Ben didn't move, didn't speak, just watched him, fixed him in his mind like he intended to sketch him later. He wore no shirt and his ribs pressed out at the skin above them. He looked like he had been suffering for a long time. His chest was lifted, however, no sinking or sulking for him, he sat tall and gazed outside like he was expecting someone. "You're through the worst of it," Ben finally said, and Dan turned.

"The fever broke," he said, fervent, grateful, and Ben could share in it.

"Yeah?" Ben pushed himself up, reached out the palm of his hand and rested it on Dan's forehead. Dan's lips parted and Ben was irresistibly reminded of Contention, of his mouth against Dan's face, kisses like a brother, a sibling or a monk, either one, and begging like a prayer. "First time in days ain't been like a fire touching your brow," he said, and let his hand retreat. He would have rather placed his bet, discovered the odds, kept his hand on Dan and seen what all he could get away with, but he couldn't forgive the evaded question, felt like he was betraying someone to let it lie. "Why aren't you at home?" he asked again.

"I couldn't go back. I couldn't bring myself to lie to her about the money, but I've known her a long time, loved her a long time. Comes to a place where I know her well as I know myself, maybe better. I knew how it was gonna go if I told her. She would have called it blood money and she would have taken it only because we were desperate."

"Hold on. Why's it blood money?"

"Don't try and make excuses. You killed to get it."

"It don't matter what I did. That's got nothing to do with you. That money got clean when I gave it to you." He knew he would want to kill Dan if he had misunderstood Ben's intent, denied the reason for the gift. "I gave it to you, Dan. I gave it to you for you and yours and you took it, not for yourself, but for your family. It don't matter what anybody else says. You know that's the truth."

"But she would hate herself for taking it, hate me for putting her in that position, and I would hate myself for making her miserable, hate knowing she was tied to a man she couldn't respect," Dan continued his litany, lifeless, like he'd argued over it a thousand times.

"So how'd you get the money to her? The boy?"

"Yes, I sent it with him." Dan slumped back against the headboard. "I got nothing more to say about it."

"I won't let you go so easy. So you hate yourself for letting Alice down and you figure drinking yourself to death oughta make it up to her?"

"I don't figure anything."

"Seems the coward's way out. I'm not gonna lie to you. Even for a man like me, who ain't got many illusions, you're a disappointment. I thought more of you, Dan, a lot more. I never thought I'd see the day you'd walk out on your family."

"It ain't walking out when they're better off without you."

"And why do you think they're better off?"

"Before any of this, the day before I met you, we'd already reached the point they couldn't stand to look at me. Returning couldn't have made it better. Only worse."

Ben remembered a moment at the Evans' when he had sat back in his chair, fixed Dan with his stare and noticed how quickly the wary and weary eyes turned away. "Maybe they don't look cause you can't stand to be looked at."

"What's the difference?" Dan said. "What's the difference? Let it go."

"I've never been uncomfortable with grief, it companions me. But I can't stand a man who feels sorry for himself."

  


Everything that was his he carried with him. Another set of clothes, another gun, bullets, a compass, a map, a few books. He took advantage of his gift for memorization, recitation. Books were heavy and they suggested a critical weakness, that fatal flaw of loving beauty. Why'd he had to escape from Yuma before? Too many hours spent with beauty. Beauty could make him careless.

When he'd first met Charlie he'd noted the blue eyes, the coiled energy contained in the lithe frame. It wasn't long before he found Prince's true measure, no, it wasn't long, but those first impressions could never be entirely effaced. Of course they'd dimmed considerably, and Charlie was aware of it, if not conscious of his own awareness. At times Charlie had looked at Ben with love and hate both blazing.

Beauty was a weakness, so he memorized his lines, and he let the books they came from go. He traveled light. He was always ready to leave. Travel onward, always going someplace new. Onto death, eventually.

Sometimes when he grew particularly attached to a volume, hesitated to toss it aside, he'd go ahead and tear it apart, just to remind himself it didn't matter. Just as he left his drawings in the places where he sketched them.

Loss. Life was nothing but and he knew it, forced its lash upon himself.

The few volumes he had with him at that time were stacked on top of the dresser and Dan took his time looking them over.

"You like to read, don't you?"

"I do."

"You read all these?"

"Yes. You read much Shakespeare, Dan?"

"I know a few of the plays."

"Got a favorite?"

"Hamlet."

Ben snorted. "Figures."

There was one book more worn than the rest. Dan brought it out. "Macbeth?"

"You know it?"

"He's a monster."

"Eventually, maybe. And only after he's stomped out whatever's good in him. He's a man, first."

Dan opened the book, stopping where a red pen had marked the words he read aloud. That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose. Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell." He flipped through the pages, the rest of them all untouched. "Why those two lines?"

"I just like the poetry in them."

  


They went out on horses that afternoon, rode in silence out of town and through the desert until they came to the river, then followed the river to a place Ben knew. It was a hot day. "Could take a swim," Ben suggested, as though it was only an afterthought, rather than his reason for heading in that direction.

"I can swim, but there's no good way for me to get into the water."

"I can carry you." He knew Dan would took a while to agree. He knew just to wait.

"Alright," Dan finally said.

They tied up the horses, took down their packs. Ben spread out a blanket, then stripped off his outer clothes and left them in a pile beside his boots. Dan undressed as well, sat down to take off the leg, ignoring Ben's stare. "Alright?" Ben asked when he had finished.

"Alright."

Ben bent down, got one arm around Dan's waist, the other under his thighs, with a grunt and heave he got back up, Dan in his arms. He walked down to the water, walked in until it was up to his waist and slowly let Dan go. The current was slow at that spot, easy to swim against.

He stood still, his hands tracing patterns on the surface of the water, watched as Dan floated on his back, face to the sun, eyes closed.

It wasn't something that had ever seemed possible, but he couldn't worry too much about what he did or didn't deserve. He'd seen too much sorrow visited on the good man, the good woman, the children of the world, to be in any kind of concern over what was justified. Clearly woe and joy were unfairly meted out. But a man had to have both in his life. Like William Blake wrote, a man was made for both. In the water, under the sun.

When Dan was ready, Ben went to him again, lifted him and walked out of the river carrying him. He walked back to the blanket, bent down and put him to rest on its surface. They lay out in the sun until the drops of water evaporated from their skin. Then they got dressed. They shared tortas Sofia had packed for them, then walked back down to the water to crouch at the river's bank and drink out of their cupped hands.

  


By the time they returned to Sofia's, night had already fallen. They stopped at the bar for a drink. There was a woman singing on the rickety stage. "Del dicho al hecho, hay mucho trecho, mi amor," she sang, and it put a spell on everyone sitting there, one could see in each man's eyes all that he had ever lost.

"It is very far from the saying to the doing," Ben translated for Dan.

Past midnight they lay in bed, reading. Eventually Dan came to a pause, put his book aside and turned his face to the window. "Are those coyotes howl like that?"

"Yes." Ben stopped in the middle of a verse to answer and didn't resent it. "Tired?"

"A little."

"Should I get the light?"

"Get the light," Dan echoed, voice caught between resignation and reconciliation, and Ben's heart clenched, then set to racing, because he understood. He made the room dark and immediately lay back down, but Dan remained sitting, still looking out the window. Finally he lay down at an awkward angle, as though he was determined to put as much space between their bodies as he could. Ben moved a little closer. There was nothing Dan could do about it, unless he wanted to sleep on the floor. He moved closer again, again, until their sides touched. It was hot, side by side, under the covers, and Ben threw off the quilt. There was wind that night, and the open window sent a slight breeze across his skin that made him shiver. "Ben," Dan said, and Ben waited, but he said no more. And then Dan's fingertips brushed against his palm, and that was it, that was all the invitation Ben needed and he took it immediately, all the way, no hesitation. He was on him, hand down the front of his body, stroking him, spit on his hand to get some wet. Got him stiff, like it was his own self he touched, and hearing Dan's noises just made it better. Was like Dan didn't want him to hear, kept trying to swallow each cry, which only made Ben want to make it good, too good, break him altogether. Now he could take everything he had wanted in Contention, but had denied himself, because all that had mattered then was saving Dan. How was he to know that he was saving Dan for himself? How was he to know that the meaning of saving Dan was to have him? He might have desired it, but he couldn't have known. In the dark there was only their bodies moving together, moving apart, against each other again and again until they both spilled. And it was good, to lie side by side. Feel each other's heat in the dark. Hear each other breathe.

  


Maybe it was just loneliness that cut so bad, that allowed Dan to give in to Ben, that bid him sometimes to stretch out his hand and rest it against Ben's cheek. It was strange to be touched like that, to know that might be how Dan had loved his wife, but he didn't mind it. He liked it.

So he knew each time he took that it was Dan's sorrow he exploited. And yet Dan was better. Sometimes a smile flashed across his face when they went out on horseback. He might point out to Ben a bloom on a cactus, a bird soaring high above, a wolf staring down on them from its rocky perch. It was better to drink together, that was the truth. Better to eat and sleep and live together. He might have called his gang a pack of dogs, but they were still his, they were still a group. That was what made the difference.

In each room there hung a wooden crucifix and a picture of Mary. Over the years he'd had a woman here, beautiful, and she looked like that Mary. They shared the pleading wounded eyes, the rose red lips, the dark hair cascading down their backs and round their breasts. Her name was Alejandra. He wondered if she still worked in town, wondered if Dan had availed himself of the professionals the town provided. Only things more beautiful than the chapel here were the whores. They were the true reflection of God's grace. Hopkins ought to write of their dappled, dimpled, glory.

There'd been a young man here, too, once. He was a man then like Ben was now, an escapee from US jurisdiction, a fugitive. He kept horses and he lived as he pleased. But Ben knew there was no real fugitive. Not when it mattered, not from death or the last judgment. Ben had been looking to buy a horse or two from him, but before he paid he wanted to make sure he was getting what he wanted. They'd raced together over the hills. It was a long day of riding before he was satisfied. They'd made their camp, cooked their dinner, and as the night swept on there was more than one need to be sated, that was all.

But there was a new kind of hunger inside him since he had met Dan and it couldn't be stopped, satisfied, by any amount of having. It was a different kind of want altogether. There was something he wanted for Dan, not for himself, that was the difference. It was something he wanted to give, not take. And that meant it was something out of his hands. His salvation lay in Dan's acceptance, as it had once before.

  


"How many fights you been in, Dan?" Ben asked one lazy morning as they sprawled in bed, waiting for Sofia to yell up the stairs and let the boarders know breakfast was served.

"Not many. Hardly any. You've had plenty, I suppose."

"I got a beast in me, we both know it. I figure the man who starts something with me, he's got the same. So we take it out on each other; our faces and fists get bloody, but nobody dies. That's got to count for something."

"Maybe."

"I'd wager you've never been in a real fight in your life. Only things I could ever say to you to get you that mad, get your blood to boil, were about your wife."

"Why's there such satisfaction in riling me?"

"There ain't much now, when I can put my hands on you any time I like." He bent over Dan and kissed his throat, rested his lips there, hands at Dan's hips like he owned him. Yeah, it was good to feel Dan was his, but he was only stealing him from Alice, from god.

Dan draped an arm over Ben's shoulders, but with his other hand he reached for the sheet and pulled it up to cover his leg. Ben was tired of ignoring it, hated the feeling that Dan would want to hide from him. "I've seen your fucking stump, Dan." Dan reddened, but Ben wasn't sorry, especially not when Dan hit him in the side with his fist. "Careful, man! I think you got me in the kidney."

"Fuck you."

"Why do you act like it's somethin' to be ashamed of?"

"You know why."

"No, I don't. Cos of what you told me in Contention? Cos some idiot shot you by accident? That makes him a waste of seed, not you."

"Get the fuck off me," Dan said, pushing Ben away.

Ben retreated to the other side of the bed, spread out on his back and yawned, stretching his arms and then crossing them behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling again, like he was back in the bridal suite. Ben couldn't help but smile, supremely satisfied because all the ideas that had been so delicious in his mind when they were locked in there together had become actual. "I never wanted to touch a man much as I want you, Dan. And I imagine I ain't the only one in the world feels that way. You're the only one who's bothered by that stump. You understand?"

"It ain't only about the leg."

"Then why do you cover it up like a nun and her tits?"

"You really want me to tell you?"

"Yes."

"Then you got to swear to shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up while I'm talking and keep your mouth shut after I'm done. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Because I'm not lying when I tell you if you don't keep your word, it'll be the last thing I ever say to you."

"Don't know, Dan. I might not mind your silence so long as I get to keep your pretty lips under mine."

"The last time you ever see me, then."

"Don't have to see you to touch you. Even the blind get their compensation."

"Forget it. You aren't serious."

"I am. I give you my word, for whatever you think it's worth." He flipped over on his side so he could see Dan. "Now tell me."

"This," Dan indicated his leg, "this is a lie I told. You know the truth, I've always known it. But I never told Alice. A lie puts itself between two people, so that every moment they're together becomes a lie, too. She never should have married me at all." Whenever Dan admitted anything, it was always with laughter, laughing at himself, laughing at the fucked up world. He might have brooded until he spoke, but confession to Ben seemed to grant release. "You asked me once why I didn't love Alice. But I did, I do, I always have and will. And once upon a time, she loved me, too. She married me because she loved me. Her family was dead set against it from the beginning. They wanted her to marry a reverend from a rich family. He also loved her. I almost didn't go back after I got shot. I almost didn't go home. I thought they'd be better off without me. That preacher never married, and he was helping her manage while I was gone. She wrote me about it, even said he'd stay on when I came back, until we saw how much I could do with the wooden leg. I couldn't stand the idea of my wife, my children, depending on another man while I sat there used up and useless. So in the hospital I got to thinking maybe it would be better if I just disappeared. She could start over again with him. I had wanted to make her happy, but it never came out like I hoped, so I told myself I wasn't gonna go back home."

"But you did."

"I had a dream of Alice waiting for me. I dreamed of Alice in a blue dress, her arms open wide for me, and I had to go back. I had to see her again. When I first got home I asked her was she glad to have me back, even as I was. She said yes, of course, and she was glad. But it didn't last. She never loved me the same, and I can't stand that."

"I've never lived with a woman that long, but ain't it bound to change? How do you know she loves you less? Maybe she loves you more."

"I don't think she ever could love me more than she first did. If she had married him he would have given her, their children, a better, easier, life than I could."

"But if she chose you, then she didn't love him, Dan. It might have been alright if she only knew him, never you. But if she loved you and married him, it couldn't have been easier. She never would have been free. Trapped with regret her whole life long. Think of that."

"You've never had to face failure, Ben. I may not like what you did, the world may want to hang you for it, but no one denies you were damn good at it."

"The best," Ben amended, and Dan laughed at him.

"Only you would brag about it."

"You know it ain't braggin if it's true." They could hear Sofia calling. Ben got out of bed and held back Dan's hand when he reached for the leg. He'd watched several times, and he thought he knew how to do it. "Let me," he said.

"Why?"

"I just want to." Dan shook his head. "Please." He waited. "Please." Dan nodded, solemn, and lay back on his elbows. "You ever let Alice do this for you?"

"No."

"She ever ask?"

"Once."

"You should have let her." He bent to his knees and took as much care as he could.

"Find what you were looking for?" Dan teased, when it was done, and Ben dropped his head, bit his lip. He wondered if Dan enjoyed seeing him at a loss. The torture didn't last long. "Help me up," Dan ordered, and Ben stood, took his outstretched hands and pulled him to standing. Dan leaned in, pressed his hand against Ben's chest and kissed him.

  


It rained too bad the next day to make it worth going outside, not when Dan could get ill again. Couldn't have worked out better, anyway, a whole day to spend in bed, naked in the gray light.

At first Dan shrank from any touch to his injured leg, but now when Ben tasted him, he kept a hand on each thigh.

"How'd you learn to do that?" Dan asked, face flushed, lips wet from licking them.

"It's all instinct, Dan. Don't you know that?"

"I like it," he said, avoiding Ben's eyes.

"No one ever sucked you before? You got to learn to ask for what you want. You know what they say here? El que no habla, dios no lo oye."

"Say it again?"

"El que no habla…"

"What isn't said."

Ben nodded, gratified. "You do learn quick. El que no habla, dios no lo oye."

"What isn't said, God doesn't hear?"

"That's right."

Afterwards they slept, but when Ben woke, the room was empty. He found Dan out on the porch, a blanket wrapped around him as he watched the rain, an empty bowl to his side. "Sofia's got some kind of pork stew in the oven," he told Ben, in the tight, unfriendly manner of a man who wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

Ben took up Dan's dish, went inside and refilled it with soup. He drank straight from the bowl, tasted blood and salt and spice, and then he poured himself some water from the pitcher. He finished eating in the kitchen. He was no coward, never had been, but he took a moment to himself, by the fire. There was a part of him that wanted to ride off and never have to see Dan again. He knew what was coming. He went back outside, leaned against the railing of the porch so that he faced Dan, crossed his arms over his chest. "Care to lay down your burden?" he asked, and if there were bitterness in his voice or expression, he could not help it.

"I dreamed of Alice again. Just like I told you." Dan's guilt might not have lifted, but there was hope in him yet. Was like admitting to Ben his dream meant now it could return to him again. Blessing. Grace. Dan had dreamed of Alice in the blue dress again. He dreamed of her open arms. It was over for Ben, like he'd expected, like some part of him had even hoped. It was over for him, but it could start again for Dan.

  


They played poker on the porch as the daylight began to fade. The rain had dwindled by the evening. They went out on foot, intending to visit the town's modest chapel. The parish was in the process of building a cathedral, which they passed on their way, and the scaffolding for it rose up into the sky, away from the earth. It would be a very different building from the chapel when it was done. What manner of man would visit one over the other?

In front of the unfinished building stood a small group, clustered around a friar who was leading them in prayer. "Is the place holy already?" Dan wondered. "What consecrates it?"

"No priest blessing the ground, that's for sure." What made a man think he could make the earth good? It was already good in itself, already fertile and ready to receive seeds and send them into bloom, flower, make food for the animals of the earth, man included. It was man who desecrated the garden and yet masqueraded as its caretaker.

The chapel was small and close, made of adobe, dimly lit, and one of the most beautiful places he'd ever been. They stepped into it side by side. It was like climbing back into the womb, becoming a baby again. It was like crawling inside the earth and making a home there, becoming an animal, safe from winter in its burrow.

Dan made his way to the bench in front of the altar, and there he kneeled and bowed his head. Ben swallowed, looked away.

He loved Dan as the devil loved all his creatures. So pained, so desperate, so raw and perfect as he struggled to overcome all burdens, both those that had been heaped upon him and those he had wrought himself. And why, when there was this love in his heart, was he still the devil? Because he knew. He knew the burdens could not be overthrown. They stayed. One lived with them. One succumbed to them again and again.

Sofia, when asked her age, loved to say, "Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo." The devil knows more because he's old than because he's the devil. A man lived enough, he saw all manner of suffering. A man lived enough, he gave in. A man lived enough, he stopped trying.

Dan lived inside him, tore him up twice, wanting him and envying him, resentful of the good in his life yet furious should any thorns dare pierce his flesh.

There was a crack in the ceiling and a puddle below it in the dirt, just beside where Dan rested. The collected rainwater was muddy and it was pure, because the earth was pure. Ben bent down and put his fingertips in that holy water, one hand at a time.

When Dan stood he moved forward, touched his thumb to the center of his forehead, the place where Eastern mystics said the third eye resided.

The water drops slid down Dan's nose, cheek. "What do you think you're doing?" Dan said, wiping at his face with his sleeve.

"Making you new. You can start again, for both our sakes, understand? I can live with knowing I've damned myself, but not with doing it to you."

"Your arrogance never ends. If I'm damned, I did it to myself."

"You ain't damned."

"Why not? Because you say so?"

"I don't say so. I just know so."

  


At the end of that night they went up the stairs together. Dan began to follow Ben into their room, like always, but Ben stopped him. "This is your new life, Dan. A life where you can choose to tell Alice everything. So you can't come any further into this room, understand? Because if you're in my reach, you know I'm going to have you."

"That's what you meant by a new life? You mean I should start one back home."

"It's what you want, ain't it? I know you live only for them."

"Yes." And though Ben had known that was the answer, though he knew it was the only possible answer, it felt like a weight to break his back. "But what if she doesn't take me back?"

"She will."

"What if she doesn't?"

"I figure it's two and a half days out there, two and a half days back. I'll stay here a week, Dan. Do you understand me?"

"No."

"I know she'll take you back, but if for any reason shit goes bad, you'll know that I'm here. And if you return here, we'll go on together. You ain't got nothing to lose. I'll even go with you, if you want."

"No. I got to do this myself."

"You should have done it a long time ago. You never should have had to do it. You should have been a better man." He could hate Dan, hurt him, for going on alone, hate and hurt himself for his weakness in offering to accompany him.

"I know." They stood side by side against the wall, and Dan tilted towards Ben, rested his weight against him for a moment. "Good night, Wade."

"Good night, Evans."

  


They never said good bye. In the morning, Dan was gone.

When he used to leave Alejandra, he would tell her he was sorry. He knew she hated to see him go. He would tell her he was sorry, and she would always say, "Quien no tiene, perder no puede." You can't lose what you don't have.

Ben waited as long as he had promised. He waited on the last day, and it was a long, empty day, except for thoughts of where his next journey might take him. He left that night.

  


At the end of the season, he rode north again. Sofia was behind the bar as always. "A letter for you, Senor Wade."

He took it from her, noted the hand, the address. It was as he'd expected, hoped. He didn't read it there. He put it in his pocket, toasted her with the tequila she always poured him on the house. He tipped his hat to her before he went upstairs.

He was back in the room he had shared with Dan, and he sat at the edge of Dan's side of the bed, facing the window. He ripped open the envelope, slid out the letter and rested for a moment with it in his hands, feeling as though he might have already died, and unable to decide where he had been sent. He wondered if what he read would cast him out of the dark or further into it. He unfolded the sheet of paper, he fell upon the words.

You were right, Ben. You were right. I don't have much to say, except that it's good here. It's good for me, it's good for Alice, and it's good for the boys. William wouldn't appreciate me calling him a boy. He's a man now, the kind of man I'd hoped he'd be, a better man than me.

I told Alice everything. Everything.

Maybe it's not wanting to be new, maybe it's being willing. Maybe a man has to surrender each night, if he wants to be new again each morning.

Thank you, is about all I've really got to say.

At night we leave a light hanging at the back porch. You ever find yourself in this part of the world again, know it's for you.


End file.
